1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of user assistance programs. More specifically, the present invention relates to a visually seamless method of creating and editing an object using assistance programs.
2. Related Materials and Definitions
This application is related to the following co-pending application which is hereby incorporated by reference:
GUI GUIDE FOR DATA MINING Ser. No. 08/955,402, filed Oct. 21, 1997.
The following definitions may be useful to the understanding of the terminology as cited throughout the following specification. Terms not specifically addresses may be located within available technical dictionaries such as the IBM Dictionary of Computing, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994. This terminology may be used throughout the background, specification and claims of the present invention:
Application Program Interface (API): A functional interface supplied by the operating system or a separately licensed program that allows an application program written in a high-level language to use specific data or functions of the operating system or the licensed program.
Cluster: A group of records that have similar characteristics.
Cluster Prototype: The attribute values that are typical of all records in a given cluster. Used to compare the input records to determine if a record should be assigned to the cluster represented by these values.
Clustering: To partition a database into groups of records that have similar characteristics. A cluster profile represents the typical values of the fields for records in their assigned cluster.
Control: In SAA Advanced Common User Access architecture, a component of the user interface that allows a user to select choices or type information; for example, a check box, an entry field, a radio button.
Data Field: In a data table, the intersection from table row and table column where the corresponding data is entered.
Data Format: There are different kinds of data formats, for example, database tables, database views or flat-file tables.
Data Type: There are different kinds of data types, for example, categorical, integer or discrete.
Field: A set of one or more related data items grouped for processing. In this document, with regard to database tables and views, field is synonymous to column.
File: A collection of related data that is stored and retrieved by an assigned name. File Name: (1) A name assigned or declared for a file. (2) The name used by a program to identify a file.
File-selection Box: A box that enables the user to choose a file to work with by selecting a file name from the ones listed or by typing a file name into the space provided.
File Specification (filespec): In the AIX operating system, the name and location of a file. A file specification consists of a drive specifier, path name and file name.
File System: In the AIX operating system, the collection of files and file management structures on a physical or logical mass storage device, such as a diskette or minidisk. See also Distributed File System, Virtual File System.
Input Data: Data that is entered into a data processing system or any of its parts for storage or processing. Data received or to be received by a functional unit or by any part of a functional unit. Data to be processed. Pertaining to Intelligent Miner, the meta-data of the database table, database view or flat-file table containing the data you specified to be mined.
Instance: In object-oriented programming, a single, actual occurrence of a particular object. Any level of the object class hierarchy can have instances. An instance can be considered in terms of a copy of the object type frame that is filled with particular information.
Item Category: A categorization of an item. For example, a room in a hotel can have the following categories: Standard, Comfort, Superior, Luxury. The lowest category is called child item category. Each child item category can have several parent item categories. Each parent item category can have several grandparent item categories.
Item Description: The descriptive name of a character string in a data table.
Item Set: A collection of items. For example, all items bought by one customer during one visit to a department store.
Mining: Synonym for analyzing, searching.
Mining Base: A repository where all the information about the input data, the mining run settings, and the corresponding results is stored.
Mining Run Setting: Contains the different parameters defined for a mining run
Name Mapping: A table containing descriptive names or translations of other languages mapped to the numerals or the character strings of a data table.
Neural Network: A plurality of connections between computer processing elements, wherein the organization and weights of the connections determine the output
Output Data: Data that a data processing system or any of its parts transfers outside of that system or part. Data being produced or to be produced by a device or a computer program. Data delivered or to be delivered from a functional unit or from any part of a functional unit. Pertaining to the Intelligent Miner, the meta data of the database table, database view, or flat-file table containing the data being produced or to be produced by a function.
Path: The route used to locate files; the storage location of a file. A fully qualified path lists the drive identifier, directory name, subdirectory name (if any) and file name with the associated extension.
Predicting Values: The dependency and the variation of one field's value within a record on the other fields within the same record. A profile is then generated that can predict a value for the particular field in a new record of the same form, based on its other field values.
Rule Body: Represents the premise, the specified input data for a mining function.
SAA: The Common User Access architecture, the Common Programming Interface, and the Common Communications Support.
Schema: A logical grouping for database objects. When a database object is created, it is assigned to one schema, which is determined by the name of the object For example, the following command creates table X in schema C: CREATE TABLE C.X
Sequential Patterns: Intertransaction patterns such as the presence of one set of items is followed by another set of items in a database of transactions over a period of time.
Similar Time Sequences: Occurrences of similar sequences in a database of time sequences.
Structured Query Language (SQL): An established set of statements used to manage information stored in a database. By using these statements, users can add, delete or update information in a table, request information through a query, and display the results in a report.
Taxonomy: Represents a hierarchy or a lattice of associations between the item categories of an item. These associations are called taxonomy relations.
Translation Process: Converting the data provided in the database to scaled numeric values in the appropriate range for a mining kernel using neural networks. Different techniques are used depending on whether the data is numeric or symbolic. Also, converting neural network output back to the units used in the database.
Transaction: A set of items or events that are linked by a common key value, for example, the articles (items) bought by a customer (customer number) on a particular day (transaction identifier). In this example, the customer number represents the key value.
Discussion of Prior Art
Many prior art applications have small, user assistance programs, e.g. wizards, coaches, guides, which walk the user through the creation of objects in the application. Typical objects are documents, databases, spreadsheets, html pages, etc. A drawback of the prior art lies in the limited continuity between the GUI used during creation of objects and the GUI used to edit created objects. Typically, separate dissimilar GUIs are used requiring additional knowledge and therefore failing to provide an easy link between the two processes. What is needed is a GUI format that is uniformly recognizable during both the creation and development of object process steps.
Prior art wizards, coaches and guides can be found in many Microsoft.RTM. and Lotus.RTM. applications. Examples are, but not limited to, Microsoft Front Page.RTM. and Lotus Access.RTM. 97.
Whatever the precise merits, features and advantages of the above cited references, none of them achieves or fulfills the purposes of the present invention. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide for a visually seamless method of editing created objects, while preserving the steps performed during creation of the object.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an interface to the user which enables quick selection of any of a sequence of discrete object creation steps for editing thereof.
These and other objects are achieved by the detailed description that follows.